Silas Bradford's Boy by Joseph C. Lincoln

Margaret Bradford was in the sitting room, in the rocking-chair by the table with the lamp upon it, when Banks came up the walk. The window shade was partially raised and he could see her plainly.

A book was propped up on the table beneath the lamp and she was reading, the needles in her busy fingers flashing, for she had had what she would have called an old-fashioned bringing up and was one of the accomplished few who could read and knit at the same time. She was knitting a sock and he knew perfectly whose sock it was to be. On the wall he could see his father's portrait.